Thursday, January 5, 2017

Demonizing An “Illusory” President

In folklore, vampires do not cast
shadows. In R.
Emmett Tyrrell Jr.'s “Obama's coming obscurity,” is he
implying that the outgoing
president is somehow supernatural? If not, why does he make the
fantastic claim that Barack
Obama lacks a shadow on a sunny day? (Show Tyrrell photographic
evidence otherwise—he'll eat his hat, or yours.) He states, “The
reason he [Obama] casts no shadow anyplace is that there is no
substance to him, not even a smudge. He is almost a totally illusory
figure.” Certainly, this concept works perfectly as a political
metaphor—but not as objective truth. Why, then, is this learned
scribe making such a wild assertion?

Now that the GOP is assuming power,
it's vital that like-minded commentators not engage in the same
deluded and childish
whimsy as progressives. Indeed, the reality of a Trump
presidency—and complete Republican control of Congress—is an
indisputable
repudiation of Obama. His prized
legacy is a carcass on President-elect Trump's cutting room
floor. Only Mr. Obama's willful
impotence to champion America, rather than condemn it, has
rendered him “insubstantial”. Yet, Mr. Tyrrell's “shady”
mythologizing pales before this ideologue's concrete
failures. Facts that show marginalized Obama, not in shadow but
in stark relief.